Immersion Mocks Sony Over Lack Of Rumble In PS3 Controller

Sony lost some major points after its pre-E3 conference, when it announced that the final PlayStation 3 controller would no longer feature rumble technology, claiming that it would be impossible to implement it, due to its interfering with the controller's new tilt sensors. But is it really "impossible"? Immersion Corporation thinks not, and they're even ready to give Sony an ironicly helping hand for solving this thorny problem.

In an interview with Gamasutra, Immersion Corporation president Victor Viegas said that he already offered Sony numerous solutions to the problem, adding: "I don't believe it's a very difficult problem to solve, and Immersion has experts that would be happy to solve that problem for them". But on one condition: if Sony agrees to drop its current appeal against the 2004 lawsuit injunction that, if applied, would prohibit Sony from any production, manufacture, or sale of the related technologies in the United States.

Sony has already lost around $90 million in this long-running lawsuit, due to their illegal use of Immersion's "haptic" (rumble) technologies in the DualShock controllers; and Microsoft also ended up paying $26 million in a past settlement with Immersion, after being charged with similar allegations regarding the Xbox controller. It's plain to see why Sony would give up on that sweet rumbling feeling, as it has little chance of winning a case against Immersion. However, there's still room for a peaceful solution, as pointed out by Viegas' offer, so now it's up to Sony to decide whether or not they're willing to drop the appeal, in order to have a DualShock controller with integrated motion sensors. Ultimately, what they have to keep in mind is that a PlayStation 3 without vibration would pretty much be a "retro-next-gen" console.

"When you think about the investments they're making in improving graphics and sound, these are all meant to try to immerse you or put you in the middle of gameplay", Viegas said. "So to take vibration out of a driving game or a first person shooting game, I can't imagine how people will be able to view that as an advancement in gaming.

(...) We had a lot of employees on the floor at E3, and many of them got to get their hands on the [Playstation 3] controller. They say it felt light, that it felt cheap and flimsy, and that it lacked weight or substance. Overall, they were disappointed."

Of course, Immersion employees aren't the only ones upset at the lack of haptic response in Sony's new console:

"I've spoken with a lot of developers, and apparently out of the early kits they were given to work with, at least a few of them contained vibration technology", Viegas added. "When the announcement was made that the final product wouldn't contain that technology, they were as shocked as everyone else."

O'RLY?

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)